Picture Perfect
by WhatBecomesOfYou
Summary: Nick/Sara. Different Nick and Sara drabbles/oneshots for the LiveJournal community 30-kisses. Formerly "A Kiss is Worth a Thousand Words."
1. Welcome Home

**Title**: Welcome Home  
**Author**: WhatBecomesOfYou  
**Pairing**: Nick/Sara  
**Fandom**: CSI: Las Vegas  
**Theme**: #20 – The Road Home  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own CSI: Las Vegas or any of the characters from it. I'm just borrowing them and will return them intact to their rightful owners when I'm done, promise.  
**Notes**: Written for 30_kisses on LiveJournal. No, I haven't forgotten about Ashes to Ashes, but I figured I should _probably_ start tackling some of the challenge prompts I have built up, heh. Reviews would be lovely, if you have something to say.

* * *

Craning her neck downward, Sara stared out the airplane window as the bright, glimmering lights of Las Vegas quickly zoomed into view. It had been _way_ too long since she had left, she thought, even though it had only been a few days, and she had only gone to Boston for a friend's wedding. As the plane made a particularly smooth landing on the runway and sped toward the gate, and the perky flight attendant made the final announcements of the flight, she felt butterflies fluttering around in her stomach.

She shuffled off the plane slowly, allowing for the people sitting in rows ahead of her to pull their carry-ons out of the overhead compartments, nervously playing with the edge of her boarding pass.

As she entered the baggage claim area, she grinned, seeing Nick leaning against the wall, his eyes canvassing the room. They made eye contact, and she smiled, feeling the butterflies kick up a notch again. What _was_ it about Nick that made her feel like a high schooler in love for the first time? All she needed was Nick's class ring on a chain around her neck and stolen kisses behind the football stadium to make the imagined into a form of reality.

"Hey," he whispered through the din of other people's reunions as they embraced, him bending down ever-so-slightly to tenderly kiss her. "Welcome home."

She smiled into the kiss, before reluctantly breaking it to press her forehead against his. "_So_ glad to be home."

"Rough flight?"

"No, I _missed_ you, and I couldn't get off the plane quickly enough."

"Let's get you out of here," he said, adjusting his arms around her waist. "And I'll give you the _full_ welcome home."


	2. Red Lipstick

**Title**: Red Lipstick  
**Author**: WhatBecomesOfYou  
**Pairing**: Nick/Sara  
**Fandom**: CSI: Las Vegas  
**Theme**: #19 - Red  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own CSI: Las Vegas or any of the characters from it. I'm just borrowing them and will return them intact to their rightful owners when I'm done, promise.  
**Notes**: Written for 30_kisses on LiveJournal. Just a short little drabble to get me back into writing Nick and Sara again.

* * *

Red. Crimson. It was a color they were both all too familiar with, being crime scene investigators. Rivulets of blood streaming from victims, pools of blood found at crime scenes, spatter on walls. Common, everyday occurrence in their line of work. Death.

But as he stared into her eyes, the smeared red lipstick coating her lips from earlier kisses, her hair slightly mussed, he realized that the color red wasn't always about death. Sometimes, like right then, it meant more. Love. Life.

"Love you, Sara," he whispered.

"Love you too, Nicky," she murmured in reply, arching up for another kiss.


	3. Hope

**Author's Note**: _Wrote this after some of the spoilers had come out for season ten, but not all of them. So if you want to avoid all spoilers, it's probably best not to read this, but it's decidedly…not following all of them. Written for 10_quotes, mission_insane and 30_kisses on LiveJournal, prompts at the bottom of the story._

* * *

Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a woman insane. And hope was currently driving Sara Sidle positively insane as she sat by the phone, the edge of her palm mashed into her forehead. It felt like high school, if she had had a boyfriend in high school and had broken up with him. It wasn't even that she and Grissom had broken up badly. If it had been a rough breakup, she would have thrown herself into everything around her, block him out of her mind. But it had been steady and amicable; the parting of two people who _had_ been in love once upon a time and now weren't anymore.

The problem with amicable breakups, she mused, flicking her eyes downward, glancing to make sure she hadn't missed a call in her daydreaming, was that it gave hope for a reunion. Yes, they had said it was over, and it hadn't been without tears or second thoughts on either side, nor one last goodbye hug and kiss, for old time's sake. She ended up back in Las Vegas; he ended up God-only-knows-where. She was back at the crime lab, the bastion of everything she should have been avoiding, but it was also her safe haven, back with her friends. Not the same friends she had left almost two years before, though there was still Catherine, and Greg, and Nick. _Most_ of her friends were still there, at least.

Suddenly, she heard the phone ring, a shrill, annoying tone. Her heart began to beat faster in her chest, as she gingerly picked up the receiver, hoping it wasn't someone trying to sell her cable service for her new apartment. "Hello?" she asked, nervously twisting the phone cord around her finger.

"Hey Sara." It was Nick, and she let out a sigh of…relief? Sadness? Some mixture of the two? She couldn't quite be sure. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. When you left earlier, you seemed…"

Sara mentally filled in the blanks. Distant? Out of focus? Out of her mind? Any of them would work, more than likely. "Yeah, I'm okay," she said in reply.

"You want me to come over?"

"I'll be fine, thanks."

"You sure?" He sounded genuinely concerned, and Sara felt bad for turning him down. "I could be over in ten minutes."

"Nick, your apartment is further than ten minutes from mine."

"I'll be there in fifteen then. All you have to do is say the word."

She paused, contemplating all the possible paths her decision could go down. "Come over."

Hope can drive a person insane, but it can also sustain new hope, allow for it to blossom and grow. Hope is the most dangerous thing in the world, but Sara found as she moved from the phone to the couch, and waited to hear a knock at her door, hope is also the most beautiful thing. Everything would be okay. She had hope.

* * *

**Prompts**: _10_quotes "Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane." – From the movie The Shawshank Redemption, changed to woman for the story._

_30_kisses prompt 10: #10._

_mission_insane table: unthemed 2, prompt: goodbye._


	4. Breath of Fresh Air

**Author's Note**: _I don't know how long I've had this sitting on my hard drive, but here it is. Prompt was "fence."_

* * *

She had come back to work at the lab just a few weeks before, and even though she was married to Grissom, Nick couldn't help but wonder how she was coping with the distance aspect. It had to be hard to be over an ocean away from your new husband. Not that he would know anything about that, after all, but he wondered for her sake.

"Hey, Sara," he said brightly as he saw her working on a pile of evidence from a crime scene. "How's the processing going?"

She wrinkled her nose and stepped back away from the table. "All yours, Nicky, I _need_ a break," she replied, holding out her hand in presentation.

"Now, why are you leaving me here with the evidence?" he said with a mock-pout, and Sara let out a laugh.

"_You're_ the one who ran off on _me_."

"I had needs that needed to be taken care of."

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. "I'll be back shortly," she said. "Just going to get some fresh air. This lab gets quite stale at times."

"I'll come with you," he said, heading toward the door. "No need for us to work separately. We're a team, remember?"

"Part of being a team is doing your fair share of the work," she said, sticking her tongue out at him playfully.

She had a point, he reasoned with himself. And he still wasn't quite positive if searching for a midnight snack in the break room was what would be considered by her as a vital necessity. Maybe for his sanity, but considering the poor selection of food to snitch from, it hadn't helped much at all. He opened his mouth to respond, but she turned back to him.

"You can come out with me if you want. But I'm still going to want you to pick up the slack when we come back."

"Fair enough."

* * *

They walked out into the parking lot, and she leaned against the building, eyeing the fence nearby. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked over at her. "How does it feel to be back?"

"It feels strange," she admitted, kicking a small pebble with her shoe. "I never expected to come back after I left, but fate has a way of playing hands you don't expect."

"I'm glad you're back, Sara," he admitted, dropping his voice slightly. "It wasn't the same without you."

"Glad to know that I was missed."

He noticed that she was smiling as she said it. It wasn't something he had seen her do a lot in the past couple of years. Only in recent times, only since she came back. It was almost like she had a little secret that she wasn't telling anyone. Before she left, hell, even when she had come back for Warrick's funeral, she rarely ever smiled.

He liked her smile. It was one of his favorite things about her, if he had to name them. A part of him wanted to reach over and kiss her cheek, as a friendly gesture and all, but the glint of the wedding ring in the light of the moon made him step back. It wasn't the right timing; she could misconstrue the friendly kiss as meaning a lot more than it did, and everything was going so well between them that he didn't want to make it any more complicated than it needed to be.

They stood outside for a while, breathing in the fresh night air and enjoying the simplicity of each other's company, without saying a word. She finally turned to him and broke the companionable silence. "I think we have evidence waiting for us inside."

"I think you're right," he said, turning to head back inside.

"Thanks, Nick, for coming out here with me."

"No problem, Sara."

"We should do it again sometime," she said, winking and giving the most innocent of innocent smiles.

As soon as they re-entered the building, their conversation veered from the almost open-book confessional that had been the mark of their outside conversation to an animated discussion of the evidence that was awaiting their presence. Almost as though it had never happened.

-_fini_-


	5. Locker Room Correspondence

**Author's Note**: _Assumes a pre-existing relationship between Nick and Sara. Includes a slight reference to Greg/Wendy. Experimental for me in that the entire thing is written in epistolary fashion, hence the style._

* * *

"nick, stop trying to kiss me in the lab, cath thinks she's on to us. -s."  
"does that mean we can kiss when we're _not_ in the lab? -n."  
"if you play your cards right : ) -s."

"cath cornered me today and asked me what was up with you. -n."  
"what did you say?? -s."  
"i said she should ask you herself. -n."  
"oh _thanks_. -s."

"what did cath say?? i saw you two talking in her office. -n."  
"she asked me if we were a couple. -s."  
"and? what did you say? -n."  
"i told her that we're seeing where things go. -s."

"nick. what was _that_ for? -s."  
"you said we're seeing where things go. -n."  
"yeah, and kissing me in front of the team and the lab techs shows that? -s."  
"yeah : ) -n."  
"greg is going to have a field day with torturing us. you know that, right? -s."  
"we could always remind him that i saw him making out with wendy in his car after shift on tuesday... -n."  
"...wait, what?! -s."  
"i thought i told you! -n."  
"uh, no. no, you didn't. -s."  
"i'll tell you about it later. -n."

"To Nick and Sara: stop passing notes through your lockers. This isn't junior high anymore - whatever you have to say can be said to everyone, or can wait until you're off-duty. -Catherine"

"how did she find out?! -s."  
"i guess she was in the locker room when i slipped that last note in. damn it. -n."  
"it's okay, i'll have you make up for it when we get home. ; ) i have that new black lacy thing you liked in the catalog... -s."  
"looking forward to it!! -n."

**Themes Used**: _30_kisses #2 – News; Letter and mission_insane Theme: Colors, #7 – Black._


	6. Baise Moi

**Title**: Baise-moi  
**Author**: WhatBecomesOfYou  
**Pairing**: Nick/Sara  
**Fandom**: CSI: Las Vegas  
**Theme**: #22 - Cradle  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own CSI: Las Vegas or any of the characters from it.  
**Notes**: Written for 30_kisses on LiveJournal. Inspired by the line from 10.01 where Sara tells Greg that her French is improving.

* * *

"_Baise-moi_," she whispered, softly enough where Nick had to lean in close to her just to hear her. She wasn't sure why she slipped into speaking French. Maybe all those months she'd spent in Paris were beginning to seep through more than she realized.

"Sara, you _know_ I don't speak French," he said, looking down at her, moving his hand through her hair mindlessly.

"Kiss me," she repeated, burrowing her head into his chest. She felt his arms wrapped safely around her, cradling her almost, and as he complied, his lips against her own, she couldn't help but feel safe.


	7. Going Dutch

**Title**: Going Dutch  
**Author**: WhatBecomesOfYou  
**Pairing**: Nick/Sara  
**Fandom**: CSI: Las Vegas  
**Theme**: #5 – "Hey, you know…"  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own CSI: Las Vegas or any of the characters from it. I'm just borrowing them and will return them intact to their rightful owners when I'm done, promise.  
**Notes**: Written for 30_kisses on LiveJournal. Dialogue only.

* * *

"Hey, you know, Sara, there's a new restaurant on Flamingo."

"Mhmmm."

"They say it's getting really great reviews."

"Mhmmm."

"Sara, are you even _listening_ to me?"

"What were you saying? Sorry about that, Grissom wants this paperwork done before I leave."

"There's a new restaurant that I want to check out."

"Yeah?"

"And I want to know if a certain Miss Sidle will join me."

"What do I get out of it?"

"Good company, some supposedly good food if the Sun's restaurant section is to be believed."

"And will you be footing the bill, or are we going to go Dutch?"

"Are you going to ask me what kind of car I drive?"

"Nick, I _know_ what kind of car you drive, and I know how much money you make. That won't be an issue. Promise."

"That's what I get for asking a co-worker to join me for dinner."

"Then I have _no_ need to ask you those questions when I already _know_ the answers."

"Since you don't need to ask me the question, I'll pretend like it was never asked."

"So you're saying you'll foot the bill?"

"If you're comfortable with it."

"Nick, I can pay for the food I eat. I promise."

"So we'll go Dutch then."

"Sounds good. I'll see you later then?"

"Since we're going Dutch…"

"Yes?"

"Will I get a kiss good night?"

"If you play your cards right, we'll see."


	8. Look For Me, I Will Be Home Then

**Title**: Look For Me, I Will Be Home Then  
**Autho****r**: WhatBecomesOfYou  
**Pairing**: Nick/Sara  
**Fandom**: CSI: Las Vegas  
**Theme**: #4 - Our distance and that person  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own CSI: Las Vegas or any of the characters from it. I'm just borrowing them and will return them intact to their rightful owners when I'm done, promise.  
**Notes**: Written for 30_kisses on LiveJournal. I started this sometime last year, sometime before the end of season ten, and am just finishing it now.

* * *

Sara always sent him letters – or sometimes postcards, or scribbles on a napkin slapped in an envelope – "I _love_ you, I _miss_ you, and I'll be home _soon_" – and he kept them tucked away in a desk drawer. It was a rare day when there wasn't one or two waiting for him in his mailbox.

She had flown to Paris to tell Grissom that it wasn't working out anymore – that the distance between them was too much, that it had put an irreparable strain on their marriage. And she'd promised Nick that she would come home once she was done, and they could see where this thing between them was headed.

That was two months ago.

She _still_ wasn't home.

* * *

One morning, he received a phone call from her hotel.

"I'm coming home," she said, and Nick thought she sounded tired, "I have a ticket for tomorrow morning. I have to go."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

He heard the call disconnect, and then he realized he hadn't even asked her for her flight information.

Maybe she didn't want him to know. Maybe it didn't matter.

* * *

She left him a message while he was at work – "I'm in the airport, about to board my plane. I'll call you when I land" – and when he listened to it, when he got the chance, he only regretted not being there when she called.

* * *

The news played the story of a plane with engine problems. The news played the story of a plane crashing over the Atlantic. The news - he woke up with a start, realizing that the vivid, lurid details of these news reports were merely figments of his own overactive imagination.

He rolled back over and fell asleep, and no more dreams came to him now.

* * *

She called him when he was in the shower - "My flight's landed, I'll get a taxi home. See you soon."

He went out and bought her a bouquet of daisies to welcome her home with.

* * *

He laid on the couch and watched something - anything but the news, considering his series of dreams - flicking through the channels from time to time. His thoughts were a thousand miles away, it seemed; he couldn't focus on the show, only on the anticipation he felt.

And then he heard a key turn in the door, and he stood and turned to face her. Sara opened the door and walked in, throwing her suitcase to the floor and wordlessly embracing him, burying her head into his chest. "We don't need a laugh track in the background," he said, clicking the off button on the remote and pulling her close, feeling her close to him for the first time in so long - _too_ long.

She looked up at him and he could see conflicting emotions warring in her eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I missed you," she said quietly, her eyes darting downward. "I don't want to be apart that long again."

"You won't have to be," he said, stroking the pad of his thumb over her cheek. "You're _home_ now." He leaned down and kissed her - kissed her the way he had been thinking about for a while, and he felt her suck in a breath, as though she hadn't been anticipating it, before she began to move her mouth against his and any doubts he had dissipated as soon as he felt her tongue slide against his lower lip.

They pulled apart after a moment and pressed their foreheads together, and he saw that her eyes were now sparkling. "You know, I'm _really_ tired from traveling," she said, stretching her arms above her head and winking. "So put those daisies in water - they're _beautiful_, by the way - and -"

He was looking a vase before she could complete her sentence.


End file.
